A few reasons:The reward getting cut in half.The new tools and enhancements to existing ones that will be developed.The new merchants that start accepting bitcoin.The new people that haven't been exposed to bitcoins getting involved.

I think this year we wont be seeing any crazy bubbles, but we will see a slow and very much not steady rise, i would say the best strategy would be to support bitcions by using it. play games where the bitcoin has become part of it's economy. I know diablo3 will play a key role in bringing bitcoin to gamers (because in hardcore mode their will not be an auction house for real money). come Xmas time, buy gifts using bitcoin. If you smoke then considered saving money by buying European cigarettes for bitcoin.

Positive brings Positive. Stop thinking what bitcoin can do for you, instead think what you can do for bitcion.

Stop thinking what bitcoin can do for you, instead think what you can do for bitcion.

That's kind of a false dichotomy. If you figure out how Bitcoin can help you then you will do much better and have much more to offer. If you pour yourself into 'the good of Bitcoin" you'll run out eventually even if you are totally self-sacrificing. Profit is sustainable, loss is not.

Play Bitcoin Poker at sealswithclubs.eu. We're active and open to everyone.

I hear a lot about "acceptance bitcoin." But I think it has already taken place. I think the price will vary throughout the year. In the range of $ 3 ... 8 (if it will not "blast" advertising and "Google has invested in the project") Here's my prediction. The best way for the development (successful) of the project.

i let this in here

Battlefield earth there needs a haircut... god...

First you tell us you work for a Fortune 500 co. and now you're freaked out by long hair ?

The picture is getting clearer by the minute

FYI my hair are almost as long as that, should I dread them to fit your stereotypes better?

Just wash it once a week maybe? So people will be less afraid of getting lice.

I hear a lot about "acceptance bitcoin." But I think it has already taken place. I think the price will vary throughout the year. In the range of $ 3 ... 8 (if it will not "blast" advertising and "Google has invested in the project") Here's my prediction. The best way for the development (successful) of the project.

I think btc price will definitely rise after december and demand might just push it above 20 in february or so, It helps when your wife is an economist

Why should that be the case? It might happen, but there are reasons to think the price won't go up after the reward halving.

miners have little impact on the market right now, they will have half that impact after the reward halving. that is all

Supply of fresh btc to the market will be lowered, miners, who pay electricity will try to compensate their lowered income by raising the price, speculators and outsiders will think this price bump is the sign they were waiting to buy before another 30$ peak so people will buy and hold to their btc as everybody who has btc will be hoping btc will rise more. Expectations may cause short term jumps, total market is shallow (30-40 million ?) .

but of course it's impossible to predict future, mtgox might get stomped upon by some government or banks in the meantime so trust in bitcoin might go down with the price, or someone might decide to attack Iran and gold, oil will jump and everyone may forget about bitcoin for a while, aliens might invade earth and vaporize our rigs , some huge vendor might start to accept bitcoin, then it will go up. If nothing weird happens it will go up I think

Supply of fresh btc to the market will be lowered, miners, who pay electricity will try to compensate their lowered income by raising the price, speculators and outsiders will think this price bump is the sign they were waiting to buy before another 30$ peak so people will buy and hold to their btc as everybody who has btc will be hoping btc will rise more. Expectations may cause short term jumps, total market is shallow (30-40 million ?) .

Or, miners running a loss will leave, and difficulty will adjust as such

At a guess for this time next year, I'd say $7-10, assuming there's not another huge disaster like the mtgox hack.

At the end of the day, bitcoin has some very popular uses (money laundering, contraband, tax evasion, sending money overseas for no fee, sales without risking chargebacks) and I think services like bit-pay have a very promising future.What we need to do is make it easier for merchants to accept bitcoin payments and get paid in the currency of their choice. Bit-pay is good, but it's still US-only (or was the last time I looked).

I think btc price will definitely rise after december and demand might just push it above 20 in february or so, It helps when your wife is an economist

Why should that be the case? It might happen, but there are reasons to think the price won't go up after the reward halving.

miners have little impact on the market right now, they will have half that impact after the reward halving. that is all

Supply of fresh btc to the market will be lowered, miners, who pay electricity will try to compensate their lowered income by raising the price, speculators and outsiders will think this price bump is the sign they were waiting to buy before another 30$ peak so people will buy and hold to their btc as everybody who has btc will be hoping btc will rise more. Expectations may cause short term jumps, total market is shallow (30-40 million ?) .

but of course it's impossible to predict future, mtgox might get stomped upon by some government or banks in the meantime so trust in bitcoin might go down with the price, or someone might decide to attack Iran and gold, oil will jump and everyone may forget about bitcoin for a while, aliens might invade earth and vaporize our rigs , some huge vendor might start to accept bitcoin, then it will go up. If nothing weird happens it will go up I think

I just posted about this in another thread, but I'll post it here too. The problem is if the price doesn't immediately and sufficiently go up after the block reward halving. If it does not, then less efficient miners' profits will be immediately cut in half, making many of them unprofitable. This will probably compel lots of miners in that category to finally drop out. This will leave only the more efficient miners - e.g. FPGA miners - as they can tolerate such a production increase as their operating costs are much less. The remaining efficient miners toleration of reduced profits could lead to competition for those profits, effectively decreasing the price.

I think there's a good chance the price does not immediately and sufficiently go up after the block reward halving because I think there's a good chance people will attempt to price a potential price increase in ahead of time, and if enough people with enough market influence price it in ahead of time, it won't happen at the time.

The most important thing to understand about future mining is that it's not a bad thing that most GPU miners need to quit. Only those with fixed electricity costs or added benefits (such as heating) will be able to continue. FPGA is the future but that is not a bad thing. FPGA's are great, GPU mining sucks ass compared to that. I've done some mining and I speak from experience that GPU rigs are a fucking pain in the ass. It's absolutely wonderful that we have FPGA's, they are so convenient that at least convenience will not be slowing down mining investments (which it certainly does, to an extent, with GPU mining).

We are already well beyond the times when mining is having a gpu on your desktop PC and you just mine with it. More and more mining is done by either semi-professional multirig operations (1-20 rigs) or big time mining operations (hundreds of rigs). This is the natural development of mining and there is nothing wrong with it. Regular people will buy bitcoins, not mine them. Mining is for those who see it either as a business or a hobby or something in between (which is an increasing portion of miners).

The problem with FPGAs is the recent trend to proprietary products. That is something which I would call antisocial greed. They have no interest in bitcoin and are only selling products for fiat. This forces existing miner who wanna upgrade to sell their old equipment for fiat which would otherwise flow back into the bitcoin economy.But the longer trend gives hope, since the Spartan 6 LX150 has been established as 'the chip' for open source mining platforms it will get synergistic improvement from various projects and possible market leverage in buying the chips in the future.This will strengthen the community and provide stable growth if people realize they will be better up with open products with community involvement and room to improvement than proprietary crap.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they keep laughing, then they start choking on their laughter, and then they go and catch their breath. Then they start laughing even more.

The problem with FPGAs is the recent trend to proprietary products. That is something which I would call antisocial greed. They have no interest in bitcoin and are only selling products for fiat. This forces existing miner who wanna upgrade to sell their old equipment for fiat which would otherwise flow back into the bitcoin economy.But the longer trend gives hope, since the Spartan 6 LX150 has been established as 'the chip' for open source mining platforms it will get synergistic improvement from various projects and possible market leverage in buying the chips in the future.This will strengthen the community and provide stable growth if people realize they will be better up with open products with community involvement and room to improvement than proprietary crap.

Agreed. I also think there is substantial risk in buying FPGAs since they have close to 0 resell value the moment that Asic miners start to show up on scale. This may already happen this summer, possibly long before anyone will have had the chance to pay off their FPGA rig.So I think a lot of people will drop out and won't upgrade to FPGAs and buy coins instead. For many, mining wasn't really that cool of a deal considering the mini margin and the many hours put into rig building, maintainance and forum watching for possible lose all money risks.Sure, it's fun. But honestly, it was'nt really such a great business model. The risks are just too great. And what ARE you gonna do with FPGAs if "shit starts hitting the fan"? Just wishing your lost investment away won't do the trick. Unless you are in denial. This may be a wide spread issue around Bitcoin entrepreneurs.